I Thought I Was Dying. My Body Still Thinks I Did.

Nobody really talks about how hard it is to feel safe in your body again after you thought you were dying.
Like, actually thought—no exaggeration, no drama—just a moment when everything in you went, “Oh. This is it.”

And then…it wasn’t.

Which should be good news, right?

It was good news. Of course it was.

But then, there’s this whole thing that happens when you really believed you were about to die.
Like, I was done with being alive. I kept my eyes open for as long as I could because I just knew it was the last time I was going to see anything.

And the thing is, the last image I thought I’d ever see?
It was him.
The way he looked over me—so mad, so pointedly ready to end me.
The sound of his breathing.
The way I couldn’t feel my body and couldn’t figure out why.

Like, the actual thought was:
“I won’t ever breathe again. In fact, I’ve already taken my last breath. I’m about to pass out and not wake up.”

That’s the thing—I truly believed I wasn’t going to wake up when I closed my eyes.
And it’s taken me this entire last year just to fully believe that I did.
Like, I just now figured out I lived.

And now the world’s on fire again and my nervous system is like, Wait… did we survive or nah?

My brain keeps telling me we’re safe now, but my body? My nervous system? Still stuck in this weird little loop where it doesn’t quite believe it.

I’ll be doing something totally normal—eating lunch, talking with a friend, watching Love Island like the highly productive adult I am—and suddenly there’s this flutter. This jolt. This whisper of fear.
And I’m back there again.
Back in the moment where everything was ending.

It’s weird, because I understand the word “trigger” now in a way I didn’t before.
It’s not a conscious choice. It’s not something you can always prep for or avoid.
It just… happens.

For me, right now, it’s watching anyone choke on TV.
I tried to watch Squid Game with my bestie this weekend, and there were scenes I physically couldn’t sit through. I had to hide my head in a pillow while she told me when it was safe to look.

And it’s not like I’ve ever been bothered by that kind of thing before.
But now? I’m bothered.
So yeah… that probably has something to do with getting strangled and thinking I wasn’t going to wake up. Right?

I keep thinking I should be “over it” by now.
I keep waiting to feel normal again. To stop flinching at shadows that aren’t even there.

But the fear did something deeper.
It settled in.
It sat in my bones and decided to hang out for a while, even though the danger is long gone.

It’s weird, because I am not sad about it, and for the first time in a long time, I am not spiraling, but now I know that I am actually alive, and it’s been a weird ride trying to realize that.

Trying to convince my body that it doesn’t have to be on high alert anymore. And maybe I can stop trying to survive and start trying to live and all that jazz.

It’s wild how something that only lasted a few seconds can take months to unpack. But if I am being honest, he’s been controlling me with beatings and punishments beyond my worst nightmares for the past ten years, and I thought it was coming to an end in my demise. I never really imagined a world past that moment the second I thought it was over. And now I don’t know how to imagine it.

And I keep thinking about how many people must feel this way and never talk about it.
Because there’s no diagnosis for “I thought I was dying and now my brain doesn’t trust my body anymore.”

But if there was, then I would so have that right now. Anyway, I didn’t die. I am going to keep waking up and telling myself that until my whole brain, nervous system, chakra, chi, and whatever else thought it was leaving this realm and passing into the next realizes it.

I just hope I am not too late. I hope I realize it soon enough.